MR. GLADSTONEI am very desirous to answer a Question put to me some days ago with respect to which I asked for time to refer, and which has not been revived or put on the Paper. It referred to a matter of some importance. The hon. Member who put the Question assumed that the Viceroy of India had described the proceedings near Penjdeh in terms different from those used by us in this House. We described it as an apparent act of unprovoked aggression, and the hon. Gentleman assumed that Lord Dufferin had undertaken to decide the fact. I have now before me a report—which I presume is accurate, as it is given in inverted commas in The Times of India—of the speech made by the Viceroy at the Lahore Railway Station in reference to the Penjdeh incident, and in reply to an address from the Lahore Municipality. The Viceroy is reported to have said—
Coming as I do from an important interview with a neighbouring and friendly Ruler whose frontiers have been assailed by what seems to have been a most unprovoked attack.Lord Dufferin, therefore, adopts substantially the same form of speech as was adopted by us in this House.